Exercise in Patients Prescribed an Anti-Obesity Medication in a Medical Weight Loss Clinic

Background: Contemporary anti-obesity medications (AOM) are efficacious for weight loss. The addition of exercise to AOM treatment may confer health, body composition, and metabolic benefits. This study examined self-reported exercise engagement in patients receiving AOM treatment within the context of a medical weight loss clinic. Methods: An electronic survey was distributed to 532 patients in a clinical registry who were receiving treatment with an AOM at a university medical center weight loss clinic. Patients received up to 3 invitations to complete the survey. The survey included questions about the patients experience with their AOM treatment and queried about lifestyle behaviors. The questions pertaining to exercise used for these analyses included the types of exercise (aerobic: AER; resistance: RES; mind/body: MB; other) and min/wk was computed from reported days/wk and min/day of exercise participation. Results: Survey responses were received from 96 patients (18% return rate). For these analyses, exercise participation was examined only for patients currently prescribed a GLP-1 AOM (83 patients). Patients reported participation in structured exercise 2.8 ± 1.7 days/ wk (84.3% reporting >1 day/wk) for 121.7 ± 109.0 min/wk (34% reporting >150 min/wk). Patients achieving >150 versus